Ask Experienced Devs

1064 readers

1 users here now

Icon base by Delapouite under CC BY 3.0 with modifications to add a gradient

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

Users of Vim and similars, what exactly makes it useful compared to other text editors? How much time do you suppose you save when working with it? (programming.dev)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

69 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I'd like actual examples instead of "I work faster", something like "I can move straight to the middle of the file with 7mv" or "I can keep 4 different text snippets in memory and paste each with a number+pt, like 2pt", things that you actually use somewhat frequently instead of what you can do, but probably only did once.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 31 points 5 months ago (8 children)

Where editors usually have editing shortcuts, vim has an editing grammar.

So you can copy (or select, or replace, or delete, or any other editing verb) N arguments or blocks or lines or functions or any entity for which vim has an editing noun, or around or inside either of these, and you only need to remember a few such editing verbs and nouns and adjectives in order to immediately become much more effective.

It's so effective that switching back to a regular editor feels annoyingly clunky. (I guess that's why many offer vim plugins these days.)

Better: you can record entire editing sentences and replay them. Ever had to make the same change on dozens of lines? Now you can do it in seconds.

Now of course, replaying a sentence, or several sentences, is also a sentence of its own that you can replay in another file if you want.

It's neat. :)

[–] zipsglacier 3 points 5 months ago

This is the comment that best explains it for me. I started with vim for comfort (less movement to mouse, and less reliance on modifier keys). The editing grammar is something I didn't really understand until I started gradually using it, but now it's the thing I most appreciate. I don't know if I'm necessarily faster in vim, but my work is more fluid. The editing doesn't interrupt my thinking as much.

load more comments (7 replies)